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  • Published: 3 January 1998
  • ISBN: 9780140274028
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 192
  • RRP: $30.00

An Open Swimmer




An Open Swimmer is a remarkable first novel by one of Australia's most loved and respected writers, Tim Winton.


Jerra and his best mate Sean set off in a beaten-up old VW to go camping on the coast. Jerra’s friends and family want to know when he will finish university, find a girl and make his mark. But they don’t understand the marks he’s already made and those he wears in secret. What happened with Sean’s mother, Jewel? And why is he searching for the fish with the pearl?

An Open Swimmer, the story of a young man’s search for meaning and redemption, won the Australian/Vogel’s when Tim Winton was only twenty-one.

  • Published: 3 January 1998
  • ISBN: 9780140274028
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 192
  • RRP: $30.00

About the author

Tim Winton

Tim Winton is the author of 30 books. His work has been widely translated and adapted for film, television, stage and radio. He lives in Western Australia.

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Praise for An Open Swimmer

Amid brooding images of mutilation and guilt, awakening sexuality and displacement of ideals . . . Winton draws together a delicate pattern of images and tensions and mystery. His first novel, it is a work of energy and restraint.

Helen Daniel, Good Reading